The nation’s red and blue states often are miles apart in social attitudes and, of course, political outlook.

It turns out that they also divide into distinct camps when it comes to a grimmer measure — fatal traffic accidents.

To an extent that mystifies safety experts and other observers, federal statistics show that people in red states are more likely to die in road crashes. The least deadly states – those with the fewest crash deaths per 100,000 people – overwhelmingly are blue.

In the absence of formal definitions for red or blue states, we labeled as red the states that favored Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and as blue those that supported the reelection of President Obama.

The 10 states with the highest fatality rates all were red, while all but one of the 10 lowest-fatality states were blue. What’s more, the place with the nation’s lowest fatality rate, while not a state, was the very blue District of Columbia.

Massachusetts was lowest among the states, with 4.79 road deaths per 100,000 people. By contrast, red Wyoming had a fatality rate of 27.46 per 100,000.

When shown the pattern, author Thomas Frank — who has examined the nation’s political culture in such books as “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America” – called it “amazing.”

“This is someplace where you would not expect to see a partisan divide,” Frank said.

Even the former federal auto safety researcher who brought the numbers to FairWarning’s attention, Louis V. Lombardo, couldn’t explain them. “It may be something we don’t have a definitive answer for,” he said.

Some observers offered the possible explanation that blue states tend to adopt stronger safety laws, while red states opt for looser regulation, presumably leading to more fatalities. For example, red Texas last month opened a toll road with a speed limit of 85 mph, the nation’s highest.

But the sweeping generalization doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

For one thing, federal pressure in many cases has prodded states to enforce similar safety rules, such as seat belt requirements. And states don’t always act along predictable liberal-versus-conservative lines. As FairWarning has reported, blue Michigan in April repealed its requirement that all motorcyclists wear helmets, while some states with the toughest helmet laws are in the Deep South.

Traffic safety experts generally suggest that a mix of factors accounts for the varying rates. Possible variables include access to top-level trauma centers, weather conditions and how much of a state is rural, because rural residents may drive longer distances on narrow, winding roads. Lower income and education levels may also contribute to higher death rates.

“This is someplace where you would not expect to see a partisan divide,”

— Thomas Frank, author

“No matter how you look at fatal crash rates, there are some important things that explain why states are different, and they’re not political explanations,” said Anne McCartt, the senior vice president for research with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Complicating things further is the possibility that deaths per 100,000 residents isn’t the best yardstick for comparisons. Fatalities per total miles traveled, some experts say, is better.

For his part, Lombardo says he’s less interested in the causes of the state differences than in reducing the toll of U.S. traffic deaths, estimated at 32,885 in 2010.

For instance, he advocates getting crash victims medical treatment more quickly by expanding air ambulance services.

The key question, Lombardo added, is “how do we move the people, and [have] the people then move their politicians, to do the right thing?”

If he needs evidence that at least some parts of the country can do better, Lombardo can point to the striking red-blue divide in the accompanying chart.

32 comments to “Traffic Deaths: A Surprising Dimension of the Red State-Blue State Divide”

I think you should also note that bigger cities that are denser also have much safer and better drivers, because you have to be skilled. Bigger cities ALSO tend to vote democrat.

This is like the statistic that shows, there is a very high correlation to the amount of deaths by drowning to the amount of ice cream sold. True, ice cream doesn’t cause people to drown, but people tend to buy ice cream during hot days, and also tend to swim more on hot days.

It has nothing to do with political affiliations. I mean NJ had been red and has been blue. Also, according to Forbes, DC has the most reckless drivers. Overall some of the reasons for death/fatalities in car crashes is: make and models of cars, wearing a seat belt, control of emotions (less road rage), road conditions, traffic laws (what’s the speed limit, DUI level of alcohol in blood). and what are the types of jobs held–blue collar/white collar etc.

This is useless information. I mean DC the safest place? Well obviously it has the slowest average MPH. How about this, DC is the most dangerous place in the US to be a pedestrian with 47% of all traffic related fatalities. In fact, the *blue states* are the most dangerous for pedestrians according to the statistics.

In its desperate attempt to slam Republicans, this idiotic article overlooks a simple fact: the states with the highest fatality rates are mostly non-urban.
Duh.
Progressives/liberals with agendas seem to be chronically stupid and overlook the most obvious reasons for behaviors. They view everything through with political myopia in a sad attempt to make themselves feel superior.

This is not surprising at all. The reason: Young people are driving less and also moving to states with light rail and trains, which right now happen to be mainly blue states. Thus blue states are those states most likely (a few exceptions of course) to have more light rail and trains, and more likely to have younger people who are driving less, some not even driving at all.

One more point. Impaired drivers are not ‘the exception’. Around 40% of fatal crashes can be linked to alcohol or other drug impairment. There doesn’t seem to be any political correlation to DUI offenses. One thing you can pin on rural states, however, is a statistically lower use of seat belts. Seat belt usage is the single greatest factor in surviving a crash. Young men, particularly those in pickup trucks, are less likely statistically to buckle up. This could be because they feel safer in large vehicles or don’t view rural road driving as hazardous (compared to navigating city traffic). Either way, politics don’t seem to be a factor.

I agree that the per capita crash rate is almost useless. VMT would be a much more revealing analysis. In DC, New York, Boston and Illinois, for instance, much of the population lives in large cities with excellent public transportation. I know many people who never even get a driver’s license or own cars. In rural areas, people often apply for hardship licenses at young ages because not even the school bus comes out to where they live. So, only a VMT comparison of fatality rates seems fair. In response to an earlier post, as a metro DC area resident, I can see lots of pro-Obama and pro-Romney folks (based on bumper stickers) driving with and without signaling. So, I am not sure you could can use one person’s observations to prove a point such as the one you are asserting.

3. Don’t take my word for it. I suggest you start watching for cars in front of you that have bumper stickers from presidential campaigns, and see for yourself how many of them use their blinkers. I personally do not recall having seen a single Obama supporter who did not use their blinkers as required (doesn’t mean there aren’t any); while an awful lot of McCain and Romney supporters either didn’t use their blinkers at all, or used them only when turning at an intersection. Funny thing is, you’re a heck of a lot less likely to get rear-ended when turning at an intersection than you are when cutting somebody off.

Not to sound like a Pharisee picking at peccadillos, but a lot of people interpret the term, “law abiding citizen” simply as one who is not on parole or probation. But the world is not split in two (good party, bad party), and we’ve all gotten away with a no-no or two. And if you are thumbing up your nose at traffic laws because you think they are silly or unnecessary, remember that signaling a lane change can prevent the person you’re about to pull in front of from speeding up and hitting you in the rear. This is the law in most states, if not all of them. And you put your life and the lives of others in danger by failing to adhere, including the lives of children and unborn babies (Pro-life, anyone?). And even if you haven’t had an accident yet, there is a first time for everything. And my risk of having an accident – or being found responsible for one – is lesser than yours.

There may very well be a mix of factors, but I thought I might mention one interesting observation I have made: the driver of practically every single vehicle with an Obama sticker uses their blinkers as required, while an awful lot of those with Romney or McCain stickers either don’t use their blinkers at all, or do it only when turning onto an intersecting lane. I should note that, even in MO, the law does require people to signal when changing lanes. And if anything, I’d say it’s more important to signal a lane change, lest the person you’re about to pull in front of suddenly speeds up and rear-ends you.

Ryan shows some very insightful, well thought out comments. Obviously a well educated, inquisitive, analytical and unbiased individual. It is a well documented fact that Liberals and Democrats are a bunch of drug crazed / dazed drivers, not to speak of the illegal wetbacks they help sneak across the border to work at their vegan restaurants in San Francisco. If only we could get rid of the public transportation and bikes these Commie Rats have foisted on the Red Blooded American Public would have a viable All American Big Three. After all, we know that some snob that drives a Japanese Lexus is no better than a true patriot that drives an All American Detroit iron Honda. God I miss Mitt already!

Dems sure love playing with numbers and pie charts and distorting anything they can find so they can generalize their biased views on others. If you want to actually take this article seriously you should also factor in that most Dems live in large cities where they generally don’t commute long distances and are more likely to use public transportation or taxis or in the case of SF I guess bike ride…..Red states are generally more spread out, rural living, therefore more travelling and likelihood of traffic accidents. But it would be interesting if the libtards who conjured up this article factored in the millions of illegal aliens (who are left leaning and without licenses or insurance) or those under the influence….since one could argue Dems/liberals are more inclined to be drug users and accepting of the legalization of recreational drugs. Mike M.’s comment about education has no merit or relation to traffic accidents and to imply that Democrats are more educated is a farce–someone who is college educated can drive just as bad or worse than someone who is high school educated–apples and oranges Mikey…Income, same thing, unrelated….someone in a Lexus can drive just as bad as someone in a Honda….

Road safety experts I’ve talked with say the condition of a road is very important. Newer asphalt is far less slippery than older asphalt, even if there are no potholes or obvious problems. So its quite possible that these red states are putting less money into re-paving roads.

Colorado (blue state) and Mississippi (red state) has the highest Death Chance Rates from vehicle collisions from debris and litter on public roadways, according to the American State Litter Scorecard, which used official NHTSA data as analysis.
Other top states for a chance to die from debris/vehicle crashes include red Montana, red North Dakota, red Kansas and red Louisiana.

This isn’t surprising at all. The more miles the average person in a region drives, the more traffic deaths there will be.

I looked up the statistics for total vehicle-miles travelled for each state (in 2010), divided it by the population, and compared that to the deaths/100k. A (crappy) graph is here: http://i.imgur.com/vdz21.png (ignore the points at the bottom, I couldn’t figure out a better way to red/blue te series)

There are no outliers, and the red states that scored well are still in line with the linear relationship, as are the blues that did badly.

So, if you want to solve this, there’s two ways:
a) reduce the amount of driving everyone does, though land-use planning, making it more expensive to drive, and providing alternatives, wherever possible.
b) figure out how to make driving each mile safer than it is now, through better road design, lower speed limits, and actual enforcement of distracted/drunk/fatigued laws.

The first is probably easier than the second; as humans, our attention span isn’t great, and we’re not adapted to travel more than 15 mph or so at a full sprint.

A neutral measure might be traffic deaths per million vehicle miles, by state. I looked this up (http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank39.html) and the same pattern seems to hold: Massachusetts is the safest and Montana is the worst; West Virginia is twice as bad as Virginia; Mississippi is twice as bad as Michigan. I dont have any answers here, but it sure raises a lot of questions.

The statistic that is commonly used to determine road safety and need to make improvements is accidents or fatalitys per million miles driven. You can get those numbers at the page linked by Louis in a comment below. I didn’t compare them all, but a quick look at the highest and lowest few states yielded comparable numbers

Fatalities per mile driven data are problematic for a number of reasons:

* The public health metric gold standard is per 100,000 population (for all public health problems),

* Metrics based on per million VMT have been:

– are less reliable,
– sometimes politicized,
– denominator values changed frequently by FHWA for allocation of highway funds,
– difficult to measure differences in VMT by vehicle type, e.g. trucks vs. cars by State, and speeds,
– inappropriate because numerator and denominator are not both in population units (illustrated by the question: How important is it if you can go twice as far before you die of crash injuries?)

People need to ask themselves how can we do better saving lives of people.

Many of the previous commentors have noted that the states with the worst incidence of traffic fatalities are in areas without much choice for transport except private cars/trucks. And, the best performing states are densely populated states with public transit systems.

Another point to consider is the availability of trauma hospitals. One of the big boons to gun violence mortality is the advent of trauma hospitals, which can handle these incidents. So, a hunting accident in rural New Hampshire, Montana, Idaho, etc. results in a death whereas an equally gruesome incident in urban Detroit, Chicago, Houston, etc. results in life. The same thing for traffic accidents. There are plenty of traffic accidents in Houston, Dallas, Chicago, etc., but there are nearby hospitals able to handle the injuries. Not so much for accidents that happen 200 miles from the nearest trauma hospital. Here’s a link to “Trauma, the neglected disease of the 21st century” http://bit.ly/RRZHTx

Jake Danczyk has touched on several important factors – furthermore, states with more large urban areas or that are more densely populated are also likely to have more public transit, and hence lower traffic fatality rates.

My aim is to show that reducing the crash death problem deserves bi-partisan support, but often does not get bi-partisan support. So what we need is a tri-partisan debate that includes the views of the people. Our goal should be that none of us should die of crash injuries in any State without definitive emergency medical care.

Year after year the percent of people dying of crash injuries without being transported to any facility for medical treatment exceeds 50 percent. One would think that medically trained politicians in Congress (mostly Republicans) would be eagerly seeking ways to reduce such tragedies now occurring on average at a rate of about 50 each and every day in the U.S. without receiving timely, optimal, emergency medical care.

We can and must do better than this treating Americans injured in crashes.

This article does not seem to have had much thought go into it. The states at the top tend to be more rural, where people have to drive longer distances, average speeds are much higher, and emergency response times are lower. The states at the bottom are more urban. Many people living in cities drive rarely if at all, speeds are lower, distances are lower, and response times are faster. There are a few exceptions, but these may have other factors at play, i.e. in Alaska during much of the year heavy winter causes people to limit long distance travel and much of the population is concentrated in urban Anchorage. And of course, rural areas tend to be conservative, urban liberal. I saw this on nbcnews.com and followed it back here, hoping whoever wrote this sees my comment and realizes the simple explanation or else admits that they are less interested in real investigative journalism than they are in shock headlines.

Would this list look the same with other presidential elections over the last 30 years? Probably not. A better approach would be to examine the data more closely. Seatbelt use, drinking and driving, old cars v. new cars, speeding, road construction (e.g. many Missouri roads don’t have shoulders…one twitch of the steering wheel, and you’re upside down in a ditch.)
This article reminds me of that old joke of the guy who asks another guy standing on a Manhattan street corner and snapping his finger: “What are you doing?” “Keeping the herds of elephants away,” he says. “There aren’t any herds of elephants in Manhattan,” says the other guy. “See?” says the finger-snapper. “It’s working.”

Thank you to Stuart Silverstein and FairWarning for giving readers this timely information just before the three most dangerous holiday weekends for motorists. Over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years weekends we can expect more than 1000 Americans will die of crash injuries and several thousand more to suffer serious crash injuries.

Perhaps a better indicator would be traffic fatalities per 100,000 registered vehicles or per 100,000 licensed drivers. Would suspect that Wyoming has the higher registered vehicles per its population, and the wide open spaces would lend to higher average driving speeds than in large metropolitan areas.

Not so mysterious, if you think of the other things that distinguish red and blue states, including differences in education levels, individual income, and local resources. Each of these factors — which may play out as greater awareness of drunk driving or non-seatbelt use, ownership newer and more safely equipped cars, and higher enforcement of proper road/vehicle use — could contribute to these differences.

Without saying why, federal traffic safety officials have quietly altered crash data, revealing that more than three times as many people die in wrecks linked to tire failures than previously acknowledged.

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